Platform ecological and evolutionary genomics

Facilitating, coordinating and communicating research in The Netherlands comprising ecological and evolutionary genomics in all organisms aiming to understand ecological and evolutionary processes underlying biodiversity.

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Publication of the month

Plants have a sophisticated indirect plant defense mechanism. They can recruit parasitic wasps in response to egg deposition by herbivorous insects. Egg deposition by the Large Cabbage White butterfly Pieris brassicae on Brussels sprout plants induces phytochemical changes that arrest the egg parasitoid Trichogramma brassicae. Using high-throughput gene transcription profiling Nina Fatouros et al. report in PNAS the identification of an elicitor of such an oviposition-induced plant response. The results indicate that a male-derived compound endangers the offspring of the butterfly by inducing plant defense.